Forget the gigantic Large Hadron Collider — how about a particle-accelerator-on-a-chip?

OK, so it can’t reach the energies produced at the LHC or Tevatron, but this is still pretty impressive. Engineers at a micro-electro mechanical systems conference last week unveiled this tiny cyclotron device, which can speed argon ions down a 5-millimeter accelerator track.

The ions have 1.5 kiloelectron volts of energy and pick up another 30 electronvolts when they whiz around a 90-degree turn, as IEEE Spectrum explains. That is peanuts compared to the 3.5 teraelectron volts currently experienced at the LHC, but hey, this chip is several orders of magnitude smaller than that massive series of tubes.

Unlike most other accelerators, this device skips magnets and instead uses an electrical field to accelerate and steer its particles through a pair of electrodes.

The goal is a suitcase-sized accelerator capable of producing 1 MeV, which would make it powerful enough for a wide range of uses, according to the chip’s creators at Cornell University. Such a device could be used to make smaller scanning electron microscopes or portable ray guns to fight cancer, rather than installing particle accelerators inside hospitals, for instance: “Think of a scalpel with a proton beam coming out of it,” said Amit Lal, who worked with chip-builder Yue Shi and leads Cornell’s SonicMEMS Laboratory.

A few hurdles remain, including a more efficient way to grab ions from the 75-micrometer-wide beam. Lots of ions are lost in the transition, Shi said. But the device at least proves the concept that you don’t need humongous frozen magnets and cavernous spaces to speed up some particles.

Short rotation woody biofuel plantations on reclaimed surface mines in Appalachia can diversify domestic energy supplies and facilitate the reforestation of these disturbed lands. This study examined growth, survival, biomass accumulation and allocation, and nitrogen concentrations following two growing seasons in American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis L.) and black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) seedlings receiving irrigation, granular fertilization, and irrigation + fertilization compared with untreated controls. Fertilization increased basal diameter, height, and stem mass of American sycamore following two growing seasons. Increased stem production was attributed to accelerated development and not shifts in biomass allocation due to treatment. Irrigation and irrigation + fertilization treatments did not enhance growth or biomass accumulation of American sycamore. Similarly, black locust basal diameter, height, and stem mass did not differ among the treatments. Browse surveys showed that more than 76% of black locust seedlings experienced arrested or retrogressed growth due to browse; less than 3% of American sycamores were browsed. This intensive browse by ungulates, likely including reintroduced elk, may have affected growth differences among species and confounded the effects of treatments on black locust. Survival was unaffected by treatment in both species, but mean survival was greatest in American sycamore (80%) compared to black locust (58%). Per tree total nitrogen uptake was highest in fertilized American sycamore (7.9 g) and lowest in irrigated American sycamore (0.9 g). The results of our study suggest that granular fertilizer applications can accelerate seedling growth on reclaimed surface mines in the Appalachian region.

Hajime Sakamoto, the president of the Hajime Research Institute (a Japanese company that has been building humanoid robots since 2002) is unhappy with the world famous 1/1 scale Gundam statue. It’s nice and all, but it’s still just a statue, and he wants to build the real deal. In 2009 he built a 210cm (7 ft) tall robot – one of the tallest in the world – and he’s now attempting to build a working 4 meter (13 ft) tall version. The robot will even sport a built-in cockpit. Next he plans to build one that is 8 meters (26 ft) and if all goes according to plan, he’ll eventually build one that is 18 meters (59 ft) tall – the size of a Gundam mobile suit. It may sound impossible, but a dream is a dream.
The company is looking for sponsors to help them complete the current project, and is working with NKK Kyousei and contractors to build the parts. In the mean time, you can become a fan of the project on its official Facebook page. The following video shows the 2 meter robot, No.33, in action.

If your search discloses no trees or snow, the parachutist's "five-point landing" is useful to remember even in the absence of a parachute. Meet the ground with your feet together, and fall sideways in such a way that five parts of your body successively absorb the shock, equally and in this order: feet, calf, thigh, buttock, and shoulder. 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed at which experienced parachutists land. There will be some bruising and breakage but no loss of consciousness to delay your press conference. Just be sure to apportion the 120-mph blow in equal fifths. Concentrate!

Using a new technology called diffusion spectrum imaging, scientists are able to see for the first time—and in stunning detail—how neural fibers crisscross the brain and connect its regions. The imaging technique, developed at Massachusetts General Hospital, greatly increases the power of conventional scanners and uses mega-magnets to map the way water molecules move in the brain’s gray matter, delineating in real time which neurons are activated and in which direction they are sending impulses.

The following images by MGH’s Randy Buckner, director of the Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, and Bruce Rosen, director of the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, depict the connecting architecture, known as white matter, of one person’s brain. The colors in the images, which were taken at various angles and show different brain subsections, allow scientists to track the fibers’ multiple pathways. But less than 1% of the white matter is revealed here; capturing too much of the dense neural pathways would obscure the brain’s underlying structure.

If our brains were to evolve any further, it would increase the risk of disorders such as autism.
Our grey matter has hit an evolutionary ‘sweet spot’ – with the perfect balance between high intelligence and a balanced personality.
But scientists claim that, if our brains did become more advanced, we would be more likely to develop disorders such as autism or synaesthesia, where several senses ‘join together’ and are indistinguishable.
Becoming super-intelligent would also increase the chances of us concentrating too hard on tiny details of life and missing the wider picture.

Pepsi Co., facing a lawsuit from a man who claims to have found a mouse in his Mountain Dew can, has an especially creative, if disgusting, defense: their soda would have dissolved a dead mouse before the man could have found it. An Illinois man sued Pepsi in 2009 after he claims he "spat out the soda to reveal a dead mouse," the Madison County Record reports. He claims he sent the mouse to Pepsi, which then "destroyed" the remains after he allowed them to test it, according to his complaint. Most shudder-worthy, however, is that Pepsi's lawyers also found experts to testify, based on the state of the remains sent to them that, "the mouse would have dissolved in the soda had it been in the can from the time of its bottling until the day the plaintiff drank it," according to the Record. (It would have become a "jelly-like substance," according to Pepsi, adds LegalNewsline.) This seems like a winning-the-battle-while-surrendering-the-war kind of strategy that hinges on winning the argument that "our product is essentially a can of battery acid." The lawyers still appear to be lawyering behind the scenes but we cannot wait for this to come to trial (though we think a trial is about as likely as the chances of us "Doing the Dew" again).